Some show the sword, the bow, and some the spear, Which their great ancestor, forsooth, did wear. These in the herald's register remain, Their noble mean extraction to explain, Yet who the hero was no man can tell, Whether a drummer or a colonel: The silent record blushes to reveal Their undescended dark original.
But grant the best. How came the change to pass; A true-born Englishman of Norman race? A Turkish horse can show more history, To prove his well-descended family. Conquest, as by the moderns 'tis express'd, May give a title to the lands possess'd; But that the longest sword should be so civil, To make a Frenchman English, that's the devil.
These are the heroes that despise the Dutch, And rail at new-come foreigners so much; Forgetting that themselves are all derived From the most scoundrel race that ever lived; A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones Who ransack'd kingdoms, and dispeopled towns; The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot, By hunger, theft, and rapine, hither brought; Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes, Whose red-hair'd offspring everywhere remains; Who, join'd with Norman French, compound the breed From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
And lest, by length of time, it be pretended, The climate may this modern breed have mended; Wise Providence, to keep us where we are, Mixes us daily with exceeding care; We have been Europe's sink, the jakes, where she Voids all her offal out-cast progeny; From our fifth Henry's time the strolling bands, Of banish'd fugitives from neighb'ring lands, Have here a certain sanctuary found: The eternal refuge of the vagabond, Where in but half a common age of time, Borrowing new blood and manners from the clime, Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn, And all their race are true-born Englishmen.
Dutch Walloons, Flemmings, Irishmen, and Scots, Vaudois, and Valtolins, and Hugonots, In good Queen Bess's charitable reign, Supplied us with three hundred thousand men: Religion – God, we thank thee! – sent them hither, Priests, Protestants, the devil, and all together; Of all professions, and of ev'ry trade, All that were persecuted or afraid: Whether for debt, or other crimes, they fled, David at Hackelah was still their head.
The offspring of this miscellaneous crowd, Had not their new plantations long enjoy'd, But they grew Englishmen, and raised their votes, At foreign shoals of interloping Scots; The royal branch from Pict-land did succeed, With troops of Scots and scabs from north of Tweed; The seven first years of his pacific reign, Made him and half his nation Englishmen. Scots from the northern frozen banks of Tay, With packs and plods came whigging all away, Thick as the locusts which in Egypt swarm'd, With pride and hungry hopes completely arm'd; With native truth, diseases, and no money, Plunder'd our Canaan of the milk and honey; Here they grew quickly lords and gentlemen, And all their race are true-born Englishmen.
The civil wars, the common purgative, Which always use to make the nation thrive, Made way for all that strolling congregation, Which throng'd in pious Charles's restoration. The royal refugee our breed restores, With foreign courtiers, and with foreign whores: And carefully re-peopled us again, Throughout his lazy, long, lascivious reign, With such a blest and true-born English fry, As much illustrates our nobility. A gratitude which will so black appear, As future ages must abhor to bear: When they look back on all that crimson flood, Which stream'd in Lindsey's, and Caernarvon's blood; Bold Strafford, Cambridge, Capel, Lucas, Lisle, Who crown'd in death his father's fun'ral pile. The loss of whom, in order to supply With true-born English nobility, Six bastard dukes survive his luscious reign, The labours of Italian Castlemain, French Portsmouth, Tabby Scott, and Cambrian; Besides the num'rous bright and virgin throng, Whose female glories shade them from my song. This offspring if our age they multiply, May half the house with English peers supply: There with true English pride they may contemn Schomberg and Portland, new-made noblemen.
French cooks, Scotch pedlars, and Italian whores, Were all made lords or lords' progenitors. Beggars and bastards by this new creation Much multiplied the peerage of the nation; Who will be all, ere one short age runs o'er, As true-born lords as those we had before.
Then to recruit the commons he prepares, And heal the latent breaches of the wars; The pious purpose better to advance, He invites the banish'd Protestants of France; Hither for God's sake, and their own, they fled Some for religion came, and some for bread: Two hundred thousand pair of wooden shoes, Who, God be thank'd, had nothing left to lose; To heaven's great praise did for religion fly, To make us starve our poor in charity. In ev'ry port they plant their fruitful train, To get a race of true-born Englishmen; Whose children will, when riper years they see, Be as ill-natured, and as proud as we; Call themselves English, foreigners despise, Be surly like us all, and just as wise.
Thus from a mixture of all kinds began, That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman: In eager rapes, and furious lust begot, Betwixt a painted Briton and a Scot: Whose gend'ring offspring quickly learn'd to bow, And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough; From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came, With neither name nor nation, speech or fame, In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran, Infused betwixt a Saxon and a Dane; While their rank daughters, to their parents just, Received all nations with promiscuous lust. This nauseous brood directly did contain The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.
Which medley, canton'd in a heptarchy, A rhapsody of nations to supply, Among themselves maintain'd eternal wars, And still the ladies loved the conquerors.
The Western Angles all the rest subdued, A bloody nation, barbarous and rude; Who by the tenure of the sword possess'd One part of Britain, and subdued the rest: And as great things denominate the small, The conquering part gave title to the whole; The Scot, Pict, Briton, Roman, Dane, submit, And with the English Saxon all unite: And these the mixture have so close pursued, The very name and memory's subdued; No Roman now, no Briton does remain; Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain: The silent nations undistinguish'd fall, And Englishman's the common name for all. Fate jumbled them together, God knows how; Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now.
The wonder which remains is at our pride, To value that which all wise men deride; For Englishmen to boast of generation Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation, A true-born Englishman's a contradiction, In speech an irony, in fact a fiction: A banter made to be a test of fools, Which those that use it justly ridicules; A metaphor intended to express, A man a-kin to all the universe.
For as the Scots, as learned men have said, Throughout the world their wand'ring seed have spread, So open-handed England, 'tis believed, Has all the gleanings of the world received.
Some think of England, 'twas our Saviour meant, The Gospel should to all the world be sent: Since when the blessed sound did hither reach, They to all nations might be said to preach.
'Tis well that virtue gives nobility, Else God knows where had we our gentry, Since scarce one family is left alive, Which does not from some foreigner derive. Of sixty thousand English gentlemen, Whose names and arms in registers remain, We challenge all our heralds to declare Ten families which English Saxons are.
France justly boasts the ancient noble line Of Bourbon, Montmorency, and Lorraine. The Germans too, their house of Austria show, And Holland, their invincible Nassau. Lines which in heraldry were ancient grown, Before the name of Englishman was known. Even Scotland, too, her elder glory shows, Her Gordons, Hamiltons, and her Monro's; Douglas', Mackays, and Grahams, names well known, Long before ancient England knew her own.
But England, modern to the last degree, Borrows or makes her own nobility, And yet she boldly boasts of pedigree; Repines that foreigners are put upon her, And talks of her antiquity and honour: Her Sackvills, Savils, Cecils, Delamers, Mohuns, Montagues, Duras, and Veeres, Not one have English names, yet all are English peers. Your Houblons, Papillons, and Lethuliers, Pass now for true-born English knights and squires, And make good senate-members, or lord-mayors. Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes Lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes. Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money makes a peer.
Innumerable city knights we know, From Blue-coat Hospitals, and Bridewell flow. Draymen and porters fill the city chair, And foot-boys magisterial purple wear. Fate has but very small distinction set Betwixt the counter and the coronet. Tarpaulin lords, pages of high renown, Rise up by poor men's valour, not their own; Great families of yesterday we show, And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.
